I was wandering in the yard with my puppy again today and spotted a full size apple. Winston is the variety, I believe. It was delicious. I thought I had harvested all of the apples a week or more ago. Fun to find one last straggler.
I have also been finding a pear on the ground a couple of times in the last week. They are easier to miss when they are almost the same color as the leaves.
I've just eaten a few hawthorns. I have the Mexican tejocote and the common street tree hybrid of it and an Eastern US hawthorn, the Carriere hawthorn.
I just started harvesting Medlars. I haven't eaten any yet. The squirrels will eat bites out of them if they find them on the ground. Mine haven't bletted yet.
After that, it will just be root vegetables.
John S
PDX OR
In any dry and above average temperature spell May > September, I water with a sprinkler for multiple hours
(much standing water on the ground) about every 3 weeks. This includes the critical bloom and fruit-sizing periods.
I have been doing this for the past 20 years, with rare cool-summer exceptions.
For your plants: Have they put out the expected number of blossoms in 2021 and 2022? Do they form tiny fruits
that fall off or remain on the bush but stuck at fingertip size? Has the winter temperature there gone below 15F?
Do your plants put out at least 6" of new growth every year?
I have not applied any fertilizers, or even mulches, for the past 25 years. My original bush, now nearing 30 years old,
may be so mature that it can just blast its way through recent year weather extremes. But my newer 'Apollo' bush
in 2022, year 5 in-ground, bloomed and fruited, same treatments as the old bush. Both have afternoon shade.
Of the half-dozen street-viewable plants within 1/2 mile of here, all grew and bloomed nicely this year, but I have only seen sizeable
fruit on one of them this fall.
Great info Larry.
Mine are more than 20 years old. I have traditionally given them no water, as I didn't need to. My wife chops them every so often. They don't grow much , as they are already pretty large. We got the blossoms the last two years. I'm going to try to water them like you do, to see if they will hold onto their fruit. I'm missing it now.
Thanks,
John S
PDX OR
If chops=shears to shape, this will remove potential blossoms, best to rotate hard-pruning individual branches.
Feijoa will put out rampant sprouts at any major prune point. So much that I thin them to the strongest few.
You may also try artificially spreading pollen around, by individual blossom hand or brush transfer, or simply by
shaking branches in bloom season during calm days. Pollen can be observed flying around where backlit by the sun.
In the heat dome year of 2021, I observed that plants out in the open had dried remnants of blooms that abnormally
hung on, whereas petal drop normally occurs by day 4 or 5 after fully open. Perhaps this was your case that year.
I may have the advantage of sheer bloom volume--multiple thousands of blooms each year.
What has been the magnitude of your blooms per bush: 10s, 100s, 1000s?
And what has been the most fruity year per bush: 1s, 10s,100s?
Larry: Your above Dec 2 wording. In the last sentence are you pointing out seedlings in your area that are now trees that originated from your feijoa? In case in the affirmative; -you have started seeds? -and how?
Thanks so much for exchanging with me. Today was the day after yesterday you said these would ripen and here it is 36 hours later.
I will stand to be corrected on any notes given but I think you gave me the largest one as scaled on the right as just shy of the 80 grams.
This was my first experiences with this type of fruit, and I am very impressed. I'll look forward to my other one in a few more days of cooler conditioning than the one I had today. Parts might be familiar with kiwi and the rest maybe pawpaw. But I like my first one better than either of kinds I just said! 🙂
Rooney:
The source of the neighborhood feijoa plants are not precisely known to me. Per conversation, one
came from "a landscaper". Some are likely to be from the local One Green World.
Seeds are said to be easy to start.
Query Jafar about this as he had success some years ago planting seeds from my fruits.
I have had no success in multiple attempts at potted cuttings or air-layering. I think there was some success
this year by Jafar and a growingfruit.org person near Seattle in getting scions of my plant to take.
The ~80-gram fruit pictured above is certainly above average for this bush; my largest so far this year is 97g.
The bush record from last year is ~140g. Estimated average of all fruits/years runs in the low 50s gms.
To my taste, I have found this year's fruits less flavorful and more tart on average compared to previous years.
One theory is the extreme cool weather during much of the ripening period, since mid-October.
Recent year temperatures here during that period have been pushing 60, and this year over 20 hours a day
are spent at chill hours 32-45 degrees. They are ripening so slowly that they do not drop as normal.
Very good details, Larry G!
We continued to have more than a hundred blooms per bush each year, but no fruit the last two years.
I have realized that I won't get many fruit without me aiding the pollination, so I pollinated enough to get about
20-25 fruit per bush per year. No one else in my family really eats them, and I don't really want to eat more than 50, so I
would stop pollinating at about that point. I have never tried to freeze them. Has anyone else?
John S
PDX OR
@ John: When I was there Larry went over every detail how he optimizes ripeness. Because it seems to be important for flavor I will try and explain.
Pick when they change into a similar texture pressure of a pink pencil eraser the way I got the pair he gave me.
Store one day at room temperature, which I did with the one above, and it was very good.
Or, store in a cooler less than about 40 degrees F, and it will be ready to eat in 7 days; ..which is where my number-2 is right now. 🙂
Avoid the outer layer though! It's poorer and richer tasting than any orange peel.
Eventually I'll get one to fit into my micro-climate of the bend of my single floor house, and I can't imagine anything better either, and it's sweet enough like fig almost in the middle. I guess the orange peel layer and the post season ripening must deter fig wasps(?).
John, aside from the 2021 heat dome, and given the history of your bushes, fruit could have been expected this year.
I have never noticed any trend of the feijoa plant to fruit in alternate years.
The only thing I could further suggest (other than the watering regimen) is that rather than ceasing pollination activities,
pinch off post-bloom fruits that do not show signs of sizing up, especially the smaller of twin dual fruits at a branch node,
until you have a manageable fruit count.
Yes I have tried freezing them, and every other which-way of preparation (jam, cook, bake, etc.), but the results
do not measure up to the raw fruit. Probably best to freeze just the innards, as handling the mushy thawed whole fruit
will be a chore.
As to the rind of the feijoa, it is commonly eaten, especially in the Antipodes. At least there is not bitter flavor.
I make dried feijoa chips with peel intact, and the tiny ring of peel on an individual chip is tasty and not harsh.
While the bush has its array of animal pests, and minor tender-growth blight, it does not attract flies, bees, or wasps,
even in full bloom. Like many broad-leaf evergreens, weevils will notch the lower leaves.
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
John S
1 Guest(s)